As in Xinjiang, China is tightening its grip in Tibet

THE COMMUNIST Party chief of Tibet, Wu Yingjie, replied in January to a letter from a yak-herder living on the outskirts of the region’s capital, Lhasa. According to state media, the author, Sonam Tsering, had expressed gratitude to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, for his “happy life”, and to the party for providing care “as warm as the sun”. Mr Wu asked the farmer to spread this story to others in order to encourage them, too, to love Mr Xi “from the bottom of their hearts”. He also made clear what was not responsible for Sonam Tsering’s happiness: Tibetan Buddhism and its leader, the Dalai Lama. Mr Wu wrote that Tibetans must “reduce religious consumption”, eliminate the Dalai Lama’s “negative influence” and “follow the party’s path”.

The party has long vilified the Dalai Lama, who escaped to India in 1959, as the treasonous overseer of an “evil clique” that seeks to split Tibet from China. Since 2007 the government has even claimed sole legal authority over his reincarnation (he is 85 and, says an aide, in “excellent health”). But in recent months officials have intensified their efforts to eradicate the Dalai Lama from the religious lives of China’s 6.3m Tibetans, of whom less than half live in Tibet itself, with most of the others in neighbouring areas of the Tibetan plateau. They have also been trying to persuade Tibetans to pay less attention to their faith and show more enthusiasm for Mr Xi and the party. It is the latest stage in a decades-long attempt to crush Tibetan identity.